In 1925, David Curtis Stephenson was the most powerful man in Indiana. He owned politicians, up to and including the governor. He could send hundreds of hooded Klansmen marching through the streets. He could have a man beaten up or make him disappear. He raped women and got away with it.

Except for once.

In November 1925, D.C. Stephenson was on trial for murder and the chief witness against him was the murder victim herself, who on her deathbed had dictated her account. For once in his life, he was not above the law.

Who was D.C. Stephenson?

The son of a Texas sharecropper, David Curtis Stephenson was somewhat of a nomad and "jack of all trades." Stephenson boasted about his battlefield heroics during World War I, when in reality he spent much of the war as a recruiter in Iowa.

Stephenson’s rise to influence in Indiana was meteoric. When Stephenson moved to Evansville after the war, he took a job as a salesman for the Citizens Coal Co. The “new” Ku Klux Klan had grabbed a foothold in Indiana in Evansville at about the same time and Stephenson was enticed to join.

Indianapolis Star April 3, 1925 article(Photo: Indianapolis Star)

Stephenson’s personal life was a shambles. He was a womanizer prone to fits of rage, drank heavily and had several run-ins with the law. Despite all of his personal tribulations, Stephenson would rise to become the grand dragon of the KKK in Indiana, and with it came great political power, corruption and wealth.

Who was Madge Oberholtzer?

Stephenson was drawn to Oberholtzer, a respectable, 20-year-old Irvington resident and former Butler College sorority girl who served on the Teachers and Young Peoples reading circle board. She frequently socialized with Stephenson and on March 15, 1925, she accompanied him and two of his associates, Earl Klinck and Earl Gentry, on a train trip to Chicago.

Madge Oberholtzer left her parents' Irvington home on March 15, 1925, to take a train ride with D.C. Stephenson and two of his associates. Stephenson, at the height of his Klan power, was later arrested and served time for her death.(Photo: International Newsreel)

She might have gone willingly, or he might have forced her: He wasn't an easy man to say no to. Stephenson had been drinking heavily — as he often did — even before they got on the train. Oberholtzer admitted that she was coerced into having a couple of drinks. On the trip, the three men pushed Oberholtzer into a sleeping compartment, where Stephenson raped and brutalized her, viciously biting her as he held her down. “I love you more than any woman I have ever known," Stephenson told her.

In her dying declaration, Oberholtzer vividly and painfully recounts the rape:

“Stephenson took hold of the bottom of my dress and pulled it up over my head. I tried to fight but was weak and unsteady. Stephenson took hold of my two hands and held them. He chewed me all over my body, bit my neck and face, chewing my tongue, chewed my breasts until they bled, my back, my legs, my ankles and mutilated me all over my body.”

They got off the train in Hammond, just on the Indiana side of Chicago, and Stephenson took her to a hotel. When he fell asleep, she found the gun he always kept with him. She could have shot him as he slept, passed out drunk in the hotel room, but that's not what she was thinking of doing. She later said she wanted to shoot herself but could not pull the trigger.

Her difficult choice

In the morning, Stephenson was acting like everything was normal, and perhaps it was to him. He was used to taking what he wanted. Madge told him she needed to go out to the drugstore to buy makeup. He let her go but sent one of his henchmen to escort her. At the drugstore, Madge didn't buy cosmetics. She bought a box of mercury bichloride tablets — a powerful poison. This was the era before antibiotics and mercury bichloride was sometimes used to treat external infections. It was also a pesticide, and women sometimes used it to induce abortion.

Back at the hotel, Madge swallowed six tablets. She had intended to take all 18, but they burned her mouth. When Stephenson realized what she'd done, he had his men put her in a car, and they began the long drive back to Indianapolis.

Madge lived in Irvington with her parents, George and Matilda Oberholtzer. They were already frantic because she had not returned home the night before. They watched all the trains coming into Union Station, but she wasn't on any of them. While they were away from the house, one of Stephenson's men carried Madge through the door, up the stairs, put her on a bed and left.

She finally got medical attention, but the doctor could only pump her stomach and wait to see if she recovered. There was not much he could do about her other injuries, either. She had bruises from her face down to her ankles and open wounds all over her chest. The doctor, John K. Kingsbury, would later testify that the wounds appeared to have been made by human teeth.

In the coming days, as Madge teetered between life and death, her parents had a lawyer meticulously write down every word of her story. The lawyer, Asa Smith, took the statement to Marion County Prosecutor Will Remy. Madge died nearly a month later.

Kingsbury, the Oberholtzer family doctor, testified during the coroner’s inquest that while trying to treat Oberholtzer, she confided to him that she was about to use Stephenson’s pearl-handled revolver to kill him while he slept but changed her mind when she felt it would bring disgrace on her family. She then walked before a mirror in the room, pointed the muzzle of the revolver to her temple and started to pull the trigger. She changed her mind when she heard someone walk into the room.

However, Madge Oberholtzer's dying declaration states she took the gun, “Not to kill Stevenson, but to kill myself then in Stephenson’s presence. Then I decided to try and get poison and take in in order to save my mother from disgrace. I knew it would take longer with the mercury tablets to kill me.”

Stephenson's trial

Stephenson's trial was moved to Hamilton County and took place in Noblesville in late October and the first half of November 1925. Stephenson himself never testified. Prosecutor Remy brought in Madge's mother and doctor Kingsbury, both of whom described the extent of her injuries. She had a deep bite mark on her cheek and many more down her torso.

Front page of The Indianapolis Sunday Star on Nov. 15, 1925 announcing the conviction of D.C. Stephenson for murder.(Photo: file)

A key argument for the defense was that Madge had taken her own life. She bought the poison and took it voluntarily in secret. The prosecution brought in medical witnesses who said Madge may have died from infection from the bites she endured. If she had died from the poison, they said, she would have had a better chance of survival had Stephenson taken her to a doctor up in Hammond, instead of delaying treatment for five crucial hours.

On Nov. 14, 1925, after six hours of deliberation, a jury of 12 men, composed of10 farmers, a manager of a gas company office and a truck driver, found Stephenson guilty of murder in the second degree. Stephenson's two bodyguards were acquitted. A week later, Stephenson was on his way to the Indiana State Prison facing a life sentence.

Political fallout

Stephenson had probably expected to be pardoned by his friend, Gov. Ed Jackson, whom Stephenson had gotten elected. He'd gotten a lot of people elected, including the new mayor of Indianapolis, John L. Duvall. From each candidate, Stephenson had helped, he'd gotten something in return: a signed contract pledging loyalty to him.

Stephenson had kept all of these and when he realized there would be no pardon, he began releasing these documents to the press and to a grand jury that had been impaneled after his trial to investigate political corruption in the state.

While in prison, Stephenson implicated Jackson in a bribery scheme. While Jackson was the secretary of state, he and Stephenson offered then-Gov. Warren McCray $10,000 to appoint a Klansman as prosecutor. In exchange, the future prosecutor would drop mail-fraud charges against McCray. McCray refused and served time in prison on the mail-fraud charge. Jackson was tried on charges of bribery but was acquitted under the statute of limitations.

D.C. Stephenson's youth and swagger was gone by the time he was released from prison.(Photo: Indianapolis Star file)

Release from prison

After serving 25 years in prison, Stephenson was granted parole but violated the terms of it within a year and was sent back to prison. In 1956, he was released again, this time for good. He died in 1964 at the age of 74 in Jonesborough, Tennessee.

On a sunny, but cold, afternoon in February 1923, pedestrians scurried across Meridian Street in this midday view looking north from Washington Street. Proper winter attire included long, black coats and hats for everyone Ð men, women and children alike.(Photo: IndyStar file, UNKNOWN STAR )

Young women did interpretive dancing around the Depew Memorial Fountain in University Park on April 21, 1926, marking the 10th anniversary of the fountain. Gardeners in the park dropped their trowels and dozens of heads popped into view in windows at the north side of the old Federal Building to observe. The dancers were members of the Albertina Rasch ballet appearing at Keith's Theater that week.(Photo: Indianapolis Star)

The Indianapolis Star building Feb. 4, 1928 at the corner of Pennsylvania and New York Street. The truck on the New York Street side is delivery rolls of paper. The papers would be rolled on to a street elevator and lowered to the basement of the building where the presses were housed.(Photo: Indianapolis Star photo)

A column of 15,000 Civil War veterans parade down West Washington Street during the 54th Encampment of the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) in Indianapolis on Sept. 22, 1920. Marching tunes of the Civil War were played all along the line. It was estimated that 100,000 visitors were in the city. The spectators numbered between 75,000-90,000. (Photo: file)

The demolition of buildings on the east side of Meridian Street looking north from Michigan Street made way for Veteran's Memorial Plaza, under construction in Downtown Indianapolis on Feb. 11, 1928. The old Indiana School for the Blind, shown in the background at right (facing North Street), eventually met a similar fate years later. This area became part of a five-block civic plaza from New York Street on the south to St. Clair Street on the north, incorporating University Park, the Indiana World War Memorial, Obelisk Square and the American Legion Mall. Work on the World War Memorial, on the south side of Michigan Street, began early in 1926. The block shown here is now Obelisk Square, completed in 1930, featuring a 100-foot-tall pillar faced in granite and surrounded by a fountain. (Photo: IndyStar file)

Photographers used bulky cameras on tripods to record ceremonies marking the cornerstone laying of the Indiana World War Memorial on July 4, 1927. The color guard is facing north.(Photo: Indianapolis News photo)

New home of the Day Nursery on Lockerbie Street, photographed in November 1926. In 1927, the nursery moved to this site. A group of privileged women felt the need to offer day care services for poor women. (Photo: Indianapolis News photo)

Aviator Charles A. Lindbergh (left), who in 1927 became the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, paid an unexpected visit to Indianapolis on Thursday, Jan. 17, 1929. He dropped by the GovernorÕs Mansion on Fall Creek Boulevard to congratulate Indiana Gov. Harry G. Leslie, who took office just three days prior. Lindbergh, 26, arrived in town on Wednesday afternoon, spent the night at the Lincoln Hotel, then arose at 5 a.m. on Thursday. From then until shortly after 9 a.m., he walked unescorted and unnoticed along Downtown streets, enshrouded in heavy fog. Lindbergh was making a cross-country inspection of proposed airports on a coast-to-coast 24-hour air-rail service that was to be inaugurated April 1 of that year. One of those airports was IndianapolisÕ Mars Hill airport, which was to be used temporarily as a stopping point for the new service.(Photo: Indianapolis News photo)

The Athenaeum was constructed for the Socialer Turnverein Aktien- Gesellschaft (Social Gymnastic Society Stock Association), as it was called when founded in 1892 to raise money to build a home for the Sozialer Turnverein and other liberal German societies of Indianapolis. Originally called Das Deutsche Haus, the building was constructed in two phases, the east wing in 1893-1894 and the west wing in 1897-1898. It was renamed Aathenaeum in response to anti-German sentiment during World War I. Photo taken January 1929(Photo: IndyStar file)

The Better Babies building at the Indiana State Fair in 1926. Sponsored by the Child Hygiene division of the State Board of Health. In 1921, under the guise of raising healthy and happy children, the Eugenics movement started Better babies contests which were held at county fairs and the Indiana State Fair. But it was merely insuring that Hoosiers were breeding the healthiest and most desirable human beings.(Photo: Indiana State Board of Health)

Scottish Rite Cathedral ----July 26, 1929. The Scottish Rite Cathedral, completed in 1929, is the world's largest and cost $2.5 million to build. located at 650 Meridian st., the entire structure is laid out in multiples of 33 feet, symbolizing the 33 years of Jesus Christ's life.(Photo: IndyStar file, FILE )

D. C. Stephenson, grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK or K.K.K.), receives a life sentence for his role in the death of Irvington's Madge Oberholtzer, whom he brutally raped. His trial was held in Noblesville. On Nov. 14, 1925, the jury produced its verdict: Guilty. (Photo: IndyStar file, FILE )

Indianapolis' Tomlinson Hall (left) had served the city as a public meeting hall for over 40 years when this picture was taken in the late 1920s. The view, looking north across the lawn of the old Marion County Courthouse, also shows the City Market at right. On the night of Jan. 30, 1958 the structure caught fire, illuminating the downtown area as flames climbed hundreds of feet into the air. The historic hall was razed six months later. A single doorway arch facing east is all that stands today in the market's courtyard (visible here in the lower right hand corner of the hall, where it attached to the City Market). Photo by unidentified Indianapolis News photographer, circa 1929(Photo: Indianapolis News photo)

Indianapolis Fire Department Station 7 and Fire Headquarters, at the corner of New York and Alabama Streets, July 24, 1922. The building opened at 301 East New York Street February 1914. It was closed as a fire station June 1, 1979.(Photo: IndyStar file)

The Adolph Scherrer designed Indianapolis Maennerchor Hall at the corner of Illinois and Michigan streets in 1926. During World War I, they renamed the building as the Academy of Music in response to the anti-German sentiment. The Maennerchor was a group of German immigrants who met to perform songs of the fatherland and until mid-2018 was the oldest continuously existing male chorus in the United States(Photo: Indianapolis Star file, Indianapolis Star file)

This is a view of Washington Street looking east from Capitol in early 1929. The Capitol Theater (left center) was on the N.E. corner adjoined by the Indiana Theater (white facade). The Claypool Hotel was next to that situated on the N.W. corner of Illinois and Washington Streets(Photo: IndyStar file)

1928 Indianapolis Star file photo of Riverside Amusement Park. The carousel to the left with the roller rink behind it (also served as the dance hall) The roller coaster and the aerial swing and the Dutch windmill.(Photo: IndyStar file)

Shown here in 1923, long after it closed, the Empire Theater at Wabash and Talbott streets, was the only burlesque theater in Indiana during its heyday from 1892 to 1915. During its last couple of years it was re-named the Columbia Theater. In the 1920s it was converted into one of the city's first multi-floor parking garages.(Photo: IndyStar file, Star file photo)

Scouting organizations (Boy Scouts, Campfire Girls and Girl Scouts) gave drinks of water to the Civil War veterans parading through Indianapolis at the encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic held in Indianapolis on Sept. 28, 1921. Water tapped from a barrel was handed to the elderly veterans of the Civil War. (Photo: Indianapolis News photo)

Second Presbyterian Church and First Baptist Church on March 24, 1929. ?Both churches flanked the Indiana War Memorial and the congregations eventually moved to the suburbs. Both churches were demolished in 1960.(Photo: IndyStar file, FILE )

Aerial of Indiana War Memorial and University Park. Crowd is gathered on north side of War memorial listening to John J. Pershing speak during the cornerstone ceremony on July 4, 1927, saying he was "consecrating the edifice as a patriotic shrine".(Photo: IndyStar file, FILE )

A track meet in 1926 attracted large crowds to Arsenal Technical High School. Opened in 1912 (officially designated as the city's third high school in 1916) as a manual and technical training school, it expanded its curriculum during the 1920s and, by 1930, had 242 teachers and 6,000 students. State track meets were held at Tech beginning in 1922, but the meets moved to Butler University in 1937.(Photo: Indianapolis News photo)

Indianapolis Mayor John Duvall in 1927. With backing from the Ku Klux Klan, he won the election in 1925. His downfall would come during the trial of D.C.Stephenson, which exposed widespread political corruption and the KKK.(Photo: IndyStar file, FILE )

This horse drawn lighting patrol was still in existence in Indianapolis in 1921 when this photo was taken. In the background is the Chas. L. Riddle Co., Inc., which sold various supplies and fixtures, including automobile tires and electric lighting fixtures. (Photo: IndyStar file, FILE )

Race fans being herded like cattle head into the infield at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway shortly after the gates opened at 6 a.m. on May 30, 1923. Males weren't considered properly dressed without sporting caps or hats. Many even wore white shirts and ties. (Photo: IndyStar file,
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Indianapolis took on a bit more of an international look in 1929 when St. Joan of Arc Roman Catholic Church built a new Roman basilica-style stone church at the corner of 42nd and Central streets. The new building, with its distinctive 140-foot bell tower, shown here in December 1929, was for 20 years or more the largest and most affluent Roman Catholic parish on the city's Northside. (Photo: IndyStar file,
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Fred Duesenberg, veteran racing car manufacturer, pulls the pace car to the side of the track as famous war aviator Eddie Rickenbacker (at top) waved the racers away for the flying start of the Indianapolis 500 at 10 a.m. on May 30, 1923. This was the last race where the starter stood on the footbridge strung across the track -- it was replaced the following year by a starter's stand at the side of the straightaway. (Photo: Ray D. Casey/Indianapolis News,
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]A record-breaking crowd filled the grandstands and swarmed around their automobiles parked trackside along the infield facing the main straightaway as the starting field was moved into position for the 1927 Indianapolis 500-Mile-Race.(Photo: STAR/NEWS PHOTOGRAPHERS)

1928 photo of the Indianapolis Central Library on land donated by James Whitcomb Riley at St. Clair between Pennsylvania and Meridian Streets.The building was designed by Philadelphia architect Paul Cret, and was designed in a Greek Doric style fashion and constructed of Indiana limestone. (Photo: IndyStar file)

The Park Theater on Washington and Capitol was the city's first building constructed as a theater (named the Metropolitan in 1858). In 1882 it became the Park Theatre, then the Lyceum in 1913, the Strand in 1916 and the Park again late in 1916. (Photo: Detroit Publishing)

Blocks' downtown store in 1929. Block's billed itself as "One of America's most beautiful stores." On Oct. 3, 1911, a new eight-story department store designed by Arthur John and Kurt Vonnegut Sr. opened at the southwest corner of Illinois and Market. In 1987, Federated Department Stores Inc., which owned Lazarus department stores acquired the 10-store Blocks chain and converted them to Lazarus stores a year later. In 1993, the Downtown Lazarus store closed.(Photo: IndyStar file)

15-story Lemke Annex (later the Consolidated Building) with the marquee for Keith's Theater in 1922. The theater was located behind the building off alley known as Wabash St.(Photo: Indinapolis Star file photo)

Indianapolis Fire Tower - members of the Smoke Abatement League watch from the fire tower on the Merchants Bank building. The league kept watch on pollution production in the city. 1929 file photo(Photo: IndyStar file)

Party-goers at the home of Carl and Jane Fisher line the deck of the FishersÕ glassed-in swimming pool in the summer of 1922. Jane Fisher spent afternoons between the hours of 3 and 6 oÕclock at home in her pool, Òa rendezvous for friends,Ó according to a news feature on popular swimming spots in Indianapolis. The snow-white basin filled with clear, cool water Òfairly magnetizes onlookers into diving in,Ó said the story. (Photo: Indianapolis News photo)

The Circle Theatre presented Richard Barthelmess and Dorothy Gish in the 1925 movie "The Beautiful City". The Bamboo Inn was housed in a small corner of the theater. Baldwin Pianos to the right of the theater and the Continental Bank Building which was built in 1923. - the building now houses IPL. (Photo: IndyStar file)

1925 file photo looking south at the corner of Ohio and Meridian Streets. Keene Drugs is to the left. The Soldiers and Sailors Monument and the English Hotel and Opera House at the corner of the circle and Meridian Street. The building to the far right is the Board of Education and the Public Library. (Photo: IndyStar file)

Southside Turners building at 306 Prospect Street, January 4, 1929. It opened in 1900 as an athletic club and closed in 1975. It features a gym on the upper floor. By 1976 it had no roof and all the windows were broken out. Tony Elrod and Rob Mercer renovated the building and it reopened in 1978 as the Madison Avenue Athletic Club, hosting amateur basketball games. (Photo: IndyStar file)

Built in 1923 by the firm of Vonnegut Bohn and Mueller, this Hebrew temple served the Beth-El congregation until 1958. The B'nai Torah occupied it until 1968 and then served as the home of three Christian churches. (Photo: IndyStar file)

Tomlinson Hall served the city as a public meeting hall for more than 40 years. Truck farmers set up their stands at the farmer's market outside the hall on July 7, 1927(Photo: Indianapolis Star file photo)

Children's building at the Sunnyside Sanatorium in 1924. In 1917, City Hospital (later Wishard and now Eskenazi) opened the Sunnyside Sanitarium near Oaklandon to handle tuberculosis patients.(Photo: Star file photo)

In August 1928, young members of an Indianapolis "Our Gang" cast had high hopes of a Hollywood career during filming of a two-reel comedy called "The Pie Eating Champeens." Director Frank Melford, who had directed the popular Hal Roach comedies, brought a Hollywood cameraman and his assistant to Broad Ripple Park Indianapolis to do the filming.(Photo: IndyStar file, Indianapolis News 1928 photo)

Ft Wayne Avenue looking northeast from North St. Jan 1, 1929. The Metropolitan School of Museum and Odean Hall is at the right (this later became the Arthur Jordan Conservatory) This is now a parking lot. The building at the left is Schoen Bros. Cleaners. (Photo: IndyStar file, Joe Vitti, Indianapolis Star)

Girls seem to be having the time of their lives as they take a spin on the Maypole swing at the Willard Park playground in 1929. The park, located at 1901 E. Washington St., was named in 1908 for William Willard, the founder of the Indiana School for the Deaf, formerly located on the property.(Photo: IndyStar)

Promoted as Ò240 acres of happiness,Ó developer Carl Freyn opened the Walnut Gardens resort on Camby Road just west of Ind. 67 in 1923. The resort included swimming, picnicking, baseball and auto racing.(Photo: Indianapolis Star file)

Fountain Square in July 1925 was at the confluence of several different neighborhoods and, owing to rivalries between neighborhood children, was generally a good place for mischief and adventure. (Photo: Indianapolis News photo)